IT’S a matter of pure coincidence that we are running a story about routine madness on the roads in the same edition as one about police cuts.

Dorset’s Police Federation as part of a campaign highlighting what it says are the consequences of those cuts, says the number of serving officers in the county has fallen by a fifth since 2010, the year of the last election.

One of the obvious areas where issues are becoming all too clear is driving.

You don’t need to be a traffic officer, a highways expert or a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists to know that driving standards are deteriorating and that more and more motorists are breaking the law and putting lives in danger.

The speeders, the tailgaters and those using their mobile phones know they are unlikely to be caught these days. On the roads, cuts are having consequences, potentially deadly ones for any of us.